Chess.com, Magnus Carlsen Court Filings Fire Back at Hans Niemann’s Allegations in Cheating Lawsuit
New legal filings accuse the teenage grandmaster at the center of the cheating scandal of filing a meritless lawsuit as a public relations ploy
Lawyers for world champion Magnus Carlsen and Chess.com moved to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Hans Moke Niemann, the teenage American grandmaster who is facing bombshell cheating allegations, writing in court filings Friday that Niemann’s claims are a public relations ploy with no factual or legal basis.
Chess.com’s filings say that Niemann’s complaint presents no evidence for any sort of conspiracy to damage his career, and that Niemann has failed to plausibly show how anything Chess.com has said about him is false.
“It is so plainly without merit that it could have been brought only as a public relations stunt,” lawyers for Chess.com said in the filing.
Carlsen’s lawyers from Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider wrote: “After years of trying to curate a reputation as the bad boy of chess, Plaintiff Hans Niemann wants to cash in by blaming others for the fallout from his own admitted misconduct.”
Niemann, who was accused of cheating by Carlsen earlier this year in a scandal that plunged chess into chaos, filed a lawsuit in October against Carlsen, Chess.com and others alleging that they had defamed Niemann and violated antitrust law while colluding to torpedo the 19-year-old’s career. The lawsuit, filed in Eastern Missouri District Court, sought $100 million for the purported damages.
Chess.com has moved to dismiss the lawsuit against both itself and its chief chess officer Danny Rensch.
“As our motions make clear, Chess.com believes Hans Niemann’s claims lack any merit,” said lawyers Nima Mohebbi and Jamie Wine of Latham & Watkins. “We will present our arguments to the Court so Chess.com can get back to focusing on growing the game of chess for fans around the world.”
Lawyers for Niemann, who previously accused Chess.com and Carlsen of monopolizing the chess industry, maintained that he has been treated unfairly throughout the drama.
“Hans beat Magnus fairly. The way he was treated was not,” said Terrence Oved and Darren Oved. “Hans is a winner on and off the board. We are confident his greatest victories are yet to come.”
The controversy that engulfed chess began in September when Niemann won a stunning upset over Carlsen, the five-time world champion from Norway, at a prestigious tournament in St. Louis. Carlsen responded by doing something he had never done before: withdrawing from the event entirely.
Although Carlsen said little about his reasoning at the time—at first, his only comment was a cryptic tweet—chess insiders quickly interpreted his action as a sign of protest and that Carlsen was insinuating that Niemann was a cheater. The notion completely consumed the chess community, with rampant speculation and outrageous theories about how Niemann might have received illegal assistance.
Organizers did not find any evidence Niemann had cheated to beat Carlsen, but they later instituted enhanced security measures at events to deter cheating. The situation was so outlandish that one competitor suggested playing naked to prevent any player from having a hidden device on their person.
In a later tournament, Carlsen resigned from a game against Niemann after one move. He soon confirmed everyone’s suspicions about his actions, writing in a statement that he believes “Niemann has cheated more—and more recently—than he has publicly admitted.”
Amid the drama, Niemann launched a public defense, saying he never cheated at in-person chess. In the past, Niemann said, he had cheated in limited instances on Chess.com, but the last time was when he was 16 years old. The only time he cheated with prize money on the line, he added, was when he was 12 and he described those incidents as the biggest mistakes of his life. He further questioned why he was banne
A subsequent investigation by Chess.com, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, concluded that Niemann had likely cheated in over 100 online games, and more recently than he had indicated, including events with prize money. The report said Niemann privately confessed in 2020, when he was caught, and thanked Rensch when he gave Niemann a second chance on the site following a suspension.
“That is more than completely fair and I really really appreciate you trusting me and giving me this chance,” Niemann wrote to Rensch in Slack messages that are included in both the investigation and Chess.com’s motion to dismiss. “Not even my closest friends have given me the benefit of the doubt and you’ve gone out of your way to help me.”
The Chess.com investigation did not make any conclusions about whether Niemann had cheated during in-person games, as it only officiates online events, but it flagged a handful of over-the-board games that it said warranted further investigation. FIDE, the global chess governing body, is currently looking into the Carlsen-Niemann matter.
While Chess.com has historically handled bans for top players discreetly, it said it deviated from that protocol because Niemann had publicly misstated the breadth of his cheating on the platform.
Shortly after the U.S. Chess Championship in October, where Niemann and other competitors had to navigate intense security measures because of the scandal’s fallout, Niemann filed his lawsuit against Carlsen, Rensch, Chess.com and Hikaru Nakamura, another American grandmaster.
The lawsuit accused the parties of defaming Niemann and broadly alleges that Carlsen and Chess.com were in cahoots to orchestrate Niemann’s downfall. Chess.com is buying Carlsen’s app, PlayMagnus, for over $80 million, but has said it did not consult with Carlsen on any of its decisions regarding Niemann.